Criminalising squatters will hurt British pop music

Squat team ... a protest at the home of the justice minister, Ken Clarke, in 2011. Photograph: Felix Clay for the Guardian

This weekend a new law came into force that makes squatting – the occupation of empty buildings by otherwise homeless people – a criminal offence. Previously a lesser civil offence, the new law confronts squatters with the possibility of a £5,000 fine or six months in prison, with ministers declaring that this will shut the door once and for all on squatters while helping protect "hard-working home-owners".

Some newspapers might periodically report on groups of squatters who have (often very temporarily) moved into a plush mansion in one of London's richer districts. The mundane reality, though, is that squatted buildings are more often than not council properties that have been neglected – less desirable places in less desirable areas. What ministers have overlooked in their research is that squatting is born out of necessity. It is about individuals or small localised collectives assuming the management and maintenance of assets within their neighbourhood. It is – dare I say – an expression of the "big society".

The other overlooked fact is that squat culture is the great unspoken patron of the arts in Britain. Seeing and hearing references to the Clash and the Sex Pistols during the Olympics ceremonies was a reminder that illegal squatting enabled these bands to exist in the first place – as it did with more recent bands like the Levellers, the Libertines and the King Blues, all of whom regularly threw gigs in their new homes.

But squatting is more than just punks climbing through back windows. There is a long and rich tradition of squatting in Britain, especially in London, a city with a shortage of accommodation and extremely high rental and property prices. Whether driven by political commitment or financial necessity, squatting has permeated pop culture at all levels. Richard Branson once squatted a building, though it's not something he likes to talk about. Bob Geldof, too, lived in a squat and busked his way around London. No squatting, no multimillion-pound famine relief a decade later? Who could say.

Less obviously anarchic representatives of the rock establishment including Eric Clapton, Sting, Mark Knopfler, Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox were all resourceful enough to put a roof over their heads when the situation demanded it.

Boy George famously squatted in a five-storey Edwardian residence on London's Great Titchfield Street in the late 70s and early 80s and still managed to look fabulous even without access to running water or a working toilet. Posters of Bowie and strategically hung Chinese umbrellas covered up the damp patches. Throw Seal, the Shamen, Depeche Mode, My Bloody Valentine and Stereolab into the mix and it's obvious that squatting and creative industries go hand in hand.

I have some experience of squatting. As a 21-year-old graduate, I secured a job at the now-defunct Melody Maker. I had nowhere to live, no benefits and no money to pay rent. So I moved into a squat called Oval Mansions in London. With 60 flats and its own thriving art gallery, it was one of London's most notorious squatted buildings, long abandoned by Lambeth council. The award-winning artist Gillian Wearing squatted there before me, as did Ian Dury, who dubbed the building Catshit Mansions and wrote most of his best songs there. The experimental electro duo Pan Sonic were also in residence, alongside teachers, social workers and many others.

The tenants maintained the building for nearly three decades – doing what the council should have been doing – until someone at Lambeth realised they were sitting on a property goldmine. In 2001, the squatters were evicted, the building sold to developers and a two-bedroom, cat-shit free flat will now cost more than half a million pounds.

This most rightwing of rulings marks a dark day for the homeless and the poor – and for British pop culture.